Cool and damp. Possibility of sunshine later.
I was sweating standing still in the shade yesterday. Air is saturated.
The pool liner and cover are still wet. I’ve got to get that stuff put away but I really don’t want it put away wet. Really really don’t want that.
I did get a few things cleaned up yesterday. Not as much as I’d hoped but that’s kinda par for the course this year. Which is almost over. Crazy.
Today I’ve got a few pickups, again, mostly stuff for the house. Some for my non-prepping hobby, and some as Christmas presents for the kids. Some PPEs are in there too.
The property search continues. The 11 acres against a national forest works great as a bug out, but it turns out you don’t own all the way to the water. The Corps of Engineers does, and that means you can’t make changes like cutting down trees to improve your view or your access to the water. So as a nominal ‘lake house’ it’s not looking good. I’m still interested, but my wife isn’t. She continues the hunt though, and she hasn’t ruled it out.
I’m surprised that the expected violence from the left hasn’t been unleashed yet. They think they’ve won, so I guess that’s holding them back. The right is still playing “wait and see”. I’m glad, I just don’t expect it to hold.
I’m going to keep stacking, and keep working the plan.
nick
The property search continues. The 11 acres against a national forest works great as a bug out, but it turns out you don’t own all the way to the water. The Corps of Engineers does, and that means you can’t make changes like cutting down trees to improve your view or your access to the water. So as a nominal ‘lake house’ it’s not looking good. I’m still interested, but my wife isn’t. She continues the hunt though, and she hasn’t ruled it out.
Research the lake really carefully to make sure it isn’t under threat of being drained by the Corps in the near future. That’s been an issue around here as dams are starting to age and the last cycle of drought and torrential Spring rain revealed flaws in spillways and other infrastructure.
Same thing here with TVA. The land from some designated high water mark down to the actual water is owned and controlled by TVA.
On The Little Emory River where I did a lot of my recreational boating a chap ran afoul of those rules. Someone built a large house, in excess of 7,000 SQFT, single level, probably close to $800K in cost when the construction and land purchase are considered. Nice piece of property, flat, on the river, fairly secluded access.
But someone made a mistake. Either the surveyor, builder or just stupidity. Five or so feet of part of the house intrudes on the TVA controlled property. TVA’s flood plane. House was completely constructed before the issue was discovered. TVA took over and condemned the house. The owner cannot occupy the house. Too expensive to move, destroying that much of the house is too expensive. The house just sits abandoned.
Someone lost a lot of money. I suspect there were lawsuits to determine fault but I have not found anything. All I know is that for 10 years when I was boating the house sat unoccupied. TVA has not torn down their part of the structure I suspect because of lawsuits.
There have been other incidents of people cutting down trees on the river on “their” property. TVA finds out and the fines are substantial running into the tens of thousands of dollars depending on the number of trees removed. TVA will come out to the property if requested and mark trees that cannot be cut for any property owner.
TVA does allow boat docks approved by TVA. However the structures are considered temporary and can be removed at any time for any reason by TVA. People really don’t own their own docks on the rivers controlled by TVA.
The lake in question is a ‘reservoir’ and doesn’t allow permanent docks at all (prob because the land is Corps controlled.) Still a great choice for a bugout location. And if you didn’t want a dock, and the lifestyle things that come with it, 11 mostly wooded acres, abutting a forest and lake, 3 hours from Houston or Dallas, with a good deep well is a really good choice. The asking price is high though, given the weirdo house, and abandoned single wide on the property.
n
My buddy reports that he’s getting about 4 eggs per day, and has 4 more layers about to come online…. up from 0 in March. No rabbits though.
n
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/own-nothing-and-be-happy-great-resets-vision-future
–if you own nothing, you are completely dependent on others for everything. where you live, how you move around, what activities you participate in. it’s also anti-human nature.
Homeless people accumulate “their” stuff. Prisoners treasure “their” stuff. People want to own and control stuff. You can argue about the “appropriate” level of stuff, but it’s gonna be hard to argue that the level should be zero.
n
–if you own nothing, you are completely dependent on others for everything. where you live, how you move around, what activities you participate in. it’s also anti-human nature.
Computers, cell phones, and media are already licensed products. Cars are next.
Ack! Blasphemy against The Camel! This is not healing, Mr. Lynn!
LET THE HEALING BEGIN!
There is nothing like *healing* than our goobermint suing you into oblivion. A dollar short on your property tax = lien on your house. A day late paying your income tax = penalty and fine. And, as mentioned yesterday, you really don’t *own* your property. Don’t pay, lose it. CAMEL/plugs gonna fix that.
LET THE GOOBERMINT HEALING BEGIN!
Windows 10 is horrible. I updated a laptop and MS turned the telemetry settings up. I guess minimalist Linux distros are the solution.
LineageOS – android without the Google pieces that phone home and tattle on you.
DVDs, BluRays, on a non-networked player.
I drive around with a TxTag on the windshield, and I’m sure the city or state has bluetooth readers everywhere. We all know those cameras at intersections are running LPR software. My car probably has an LTE module in it. Who knows what its sending.
The lake in question is a ‘reservoir’ and doesn’t allow permanent docks at all (prob because the land is Corps controlled.) Still a great choice for a bugout location. And if you didn’t want a dock, and the lifestyle things that come with it, 11 mostly wooded acres, abutting a forest and lake, 3 hours from Houston or Dallas, with a good deep well is a really good choice. The asking price is high though, given the weirdo house, and abandoned single wide on the property.
Any asbestos or formaldehyde issues with the single wide?
I thought it was bad when the previous owners of my current house attempted to abandon a 700 lb “Mawhbul Kawlum” (well, concrete) in the backyard, not wanting to pay/arrange for the Bobcat which was ultimately required to remove the piece. A mobile home would be a couple of orders of magnitude tougher.
Honest to God, when I called the couple about the column, the male half actually said to me, “The kawlum doesn’t fit the decor of our new house so we left it for you.”
(Say it just like the Saturday Night Live sketch)
Realizing what her husband just said, the wife quickly got on the phone, probably remembering that removal of the column was in the closing agreement, and said, “We’ll have it removed this week.”
When I bought my house almost 33 years ago the title company was supposed to pay the partial amount of county property tax. They didn’t. Amount was $25.00. County never notified me nor was the annotation on the tax bill.
Several years later I went to refinance. Found out my house was on the “sale for tax owed” list. Never was notified. The amount I owed was now $75 due to interest and penalty. I went after the title company for the money. Was going to cost me at least that much for the title company to research. If it turned out the title company was correct, I had to pay. So I never knew if it was the county making a mistake or the title company.
I did find out that when the sale for tax owed actually took place I would be notified with an eviction notice. At that time I had the option to settle the tax myself and stay in the house or leave. Naturally I would have settled. Of course the county would also have reported the issue to the credit agencies with the appropriate slap on the credit score.
I asked the county why I was not notified. They said it was my problem to know if taxes were paid. Since the tax bills always went to the mortgage company I had no idea there was an issue.
My small city has a couple. On each end of the city. There is basically only one road through the city. The police department used the cameras to scan for hot plates, those they want to catch. When the camera catches a license plate the police are notified and by the time the vehicle is halfway through town it has been stopped.
According the police the data is never stored except for wanted plates and that information is transmitted to the police. The information is kept in case it is needed in court.
And I have a bridge for sale, cheap. Not good enough? I have a cousin in South Africa, former prince, trying to get $50 million moved and you can have 10% for helping. Should be enough to buy the bridge.
“We all know those cameras at intersections are running LPR software. ”
— they insist that the cams are not real time, don’t record, etc. that they just do vehicle detection and counting for the traffic light…. so why do they need a network connection? EVERY single one in Houston has a patch antenna pointed at an aggregating point.
WRT bluetooth readers- yup. All over town. Again, look for a patch antenna on a poll, 90 degrees from the roadway, or yagi antennas pointed at each lane from overhead. Often those yagis are for an in cab tolling system that commercial trucks use that also tracks hazardous waste shipments, but they can be used for other frequencies too.
in houston, the bluetooth readers are on poles with a solar panel on top and a bigger patch antenna for backhaul or net connectivity pointed at the horizon.
There are plenty of traffic cams and general surveillance, they don’t actually need to look thru the intersection cams most of the time. Google “smart city” for more info.
when I’m listening to the police surveillance on the scanner, sometimes they have a court approved gps tracker on the vehicles, sometimes they just call OnStar. They use LPRs to find the vehicles. They use “pole cams” to do fixed and longer term surveillance. HPD advertised for a job as a tech, installing pole cameras and other surveillance gear. I’ve seen the pole cams come thru the surplus auction. They look like electrical boxes.
n
I interviewed someone a few years ago who had worked for the city. She mentioned the traffic light cameras so of course I asked what they were for. Her response was “they don’t all track you”. Interesting response.
Of course not. There are always some that are broken…..
I interviewed someone a few years ago who had worked for the city. She mentioned the traffic light cameras so of course I asked what they were for. Her response was “they don’t all track you”. Interesting response.
Texas outlawed tickets from the traffic light cameras a few years ago, but many municipalities still have contracts with the vendors, particularly in small towns. From time to time, the vendors will send out “infractions” demanding money, knowing that some people will just pay to avoid a hassle.
Traffic light cameras are a different thing. They try to get pix of people running the red. The ones with connectivity are there to replace the mag loops in the roadway to trigger the lights to change.
We fought against the red light cams in Cali again and again. They kept coming back. Too much money in it.
n
They always project–
This Is CNN: Trump Presidency Likened to Nazi’s Kristallnacht by Christiane Amanpour
n
They always project–
This Is CNN: Trump Presidency Likened to Nazi’s Kristallnacht by Christiane Amanpour
I’m old enough to remember that Christiane Amanpour was the weather graphics girl at a local TV station in CT before she played house with JFK Jr.
–hmmm, which iranians are those? The hostage taking mullahs or the western supporters of the shah?
n
Traffic light cameras are a different thing. They try to get pix of people running the red. The ones with connectivity are there to replace the mag loops in the roadway to trigger the lights to change.
Ok. Yeah, the processing horsepower to do something like that in realtime wouldn’t fit in a camera enclosure and the servers would require air conditioning in Houston.
Mag loops are expensive to install, and a system reliable enough for traffic signals or toll enforcement requires configuration expertise that is dying off. At my last job, we had to hire someone with the requisite knowledge, and the tech demanded the moon, including a high management title — without prior management experience — in order to join the company.
I’m still not sure it was worth the cost, but what do I know. They fired me.
“Your Computer Isn’t Yours”
https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/
Also, unlike Intel Macs, for now, the new “Apple Silicon” machines can’t boot Linux when Apple decides that your $3000 laptop is obsolete in 7-8 years.
My 2012 Intel MacBook Pro is not supported with Big Sur. I figure that I’ll get another year of patches before that machine will need a new OS. Fortunately, Linux runs fine.
How long before having a computer OS other than a compromised one is considered ‘hacking tools’ or probably cause in itself?
n
Negative 20-some years, Nick. Exactly that claim was made in the late 1990s by some federal prosecutors. Or maybe investigators; it’s been years and memory fades.
So… the goobernors of WA, OR, and CA have issued “travel advisories” “asking” people traveling into their states to “self-quarantine for 14-days”.
Yes, the Constitution is dead, and if you think you own anything I’d like some of that stuff you are smoking.
Almost forgot, no family gatherings for the Holidays.
How long before having a computer OS other than a compromised one is considered ‘hacking tools’ or probably cause in itself?
Making non-compromised operating systems illegal isn’t really necessary. All but a fringe carry mainstream Android or Apple phones, and, regardless of operating system, most Intel and AMD machines have the embedded “management interface” systems with their own network adapters, allowing access to the system internals without user knowledge/consent.
“Compromised” operating systems are about marketing. Sooner or later, Windows 10 will be “free” as in beer but laden with ads unless you are a company willing to write a big check.
So today we had a lien for $25 as reason to forcibly sell a house from under the owner; computer, cars, phones and media that aren’t yours and are controlled by others and are spying on you; cities spying on and tracking their residents; elections that are demonstrably 3rd-world level; corrupt media brainwashing the public; first non-white vp, but isn’t, and the party they like to call racist was actually the first.
And it’s only lunch time.
I’m moving to alpha centauri.
@paul; Always complain to Big River Customer Service when a Prime delivery is delayed beyond what was promised at time of purchase, explaining your being ‘inconvenienced as you needed that Flashlight on the day promised’ – you should get either a one month extension of your Prime membership or a $5.00 credit on your account (for me it’s been the latter lately).
Btw, seems almost impossible these days to email them to reach Customer Service. Just about any address they email from will return a ‘this mailbox is not monitored’ response. Now it’s either call them, have them call you, or online chat. With the latter you’ll see that it’s fairly well programmed to keep you away from chatting with a real person – you can though if you’re persistent. I do recall an issue I had with them back when you could email them and I wasn’t getting a satisfactory response so I cc’d “jeff at amazon dot com” and after several more back and forth emails someone very senior from Customer Service emailed me on the side with a favorable resolution. No idea if that address is monitored anymore.
50 governors = 50 plans
Btw, seems almost impossible these days to email them to reach Customer Service. Just about any address they email from will return a ‘this mailbox is not monitored’ response. Now it’s either call them, have them call you, or online chat. With the latter you’ll see that it’s fairly well programmed to keep you away from chatting with a real person – you can though if you’re persistent. I do recall an issue I had with them back when you could email them and I wasn’t getting a satisfactory response so I cc’d “jeff at amazon dot com” and after several more back and forth emails someone very senior from Customer Service emailed me on the side with a favorable resolution. No idea if that address is monitored anymore.
Ah, “The Legend Of Jeff, Family Man, Drives A Honda, Wears the Same Type Of Shirt To Work Every Day” (TM). Those days are long gone, but even 20 years ago it was probably a room full of interns monitoring “jeff at amazon dot com”.
As Big River tries to grow retail large enough to actually turn a profit in that part of the business, the customers aren’t going to like the Company Store’s new approach to “service”.
And, I almost forgot, “Devoted Wife Mackenzie Drove The Bronco Over The Continental Divide While Jeff Worked On The Business Plan — Selling Books Was Her Idea” (also TM).
Just ran across this blast from the past, the “The Daynotes Gang” members mirror from ca. 2002:
http://seto.org/mirror.html
Read Novik’s latest, “A Deadly Education (Scholomance Book 1), in a single evening.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B083RZC8KQ/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0?tag=ttgnet-20
Wow.
This isn’t the comfortable wizardly school of Hogwarts or Roanoke Academy…
Swan Eaters: Hefty Groveling
https://www.gocomics.com/swan-eaters/2020/11/13
I have no idea who Grandma Yaga is but does she own a house on chicken legs ?
http://anomalyinfo.com/Topics/baba-yaga
Dilbert: Climate Change and Wally
https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-11-13
Let’s all give a slow clap for Wally !
According to friends who went through TAMU during Stroustrup’s time there, he is attempting to develop a new book to teach C++ and used students in his class as test subjects.
It must grate that the Death Star logo is still on the copyright page of the C++ reference.
Morgan Stanley. The big players on Wall Street are obsessed with speed, especially those large enough to run their own dark pools. If you don’t understand why, read “Flash Boys”.
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/c-programming-language-how-it-became-the-invisible-foundation-for-everything-and-whats-next/
The plan I would come up with is to have a hub and spoke delivery system – keep it at hubs in the containers and/or freezers. Have appointments made in an area for administration, deliver enough doses there. This kind of thing is already done for some medical supplies that have short shelf life. It’s just scale.
50 governors = 50 plans
You forgot the USA protectorates: Guam, Puerto Rico, Christmas Island, American Samoa, Japan, etc, etc, etc. That is quite a few more plans. And DC.
50 legislatures = 50 pork barrels
Swan Eaters: Hefty Groveling
https://www.gocomics.com/swan-eaters/2020/11/13
I have no idea who Grandma Yaga is but does she own a house on chicken legs ?
http://anomalyinfo.com/Topics/baba-yaga
Yup, there is the house on chicken legs.
https://www.gocomics.com/swan-eaters/2020/08/07
CERT has participated in exercises where the point was vaccine distribution…
Someone has some plans, whether they’ve ever been tested, and are sensible, and resilient, IDK.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/downloads/COVID-19_Vaccination-Program-Interim_Playbook.pdf
–I remember reading a couple of months ago that the major shippers were building out cold storage ahead of any vaccine but I can’t find the article because I just throw out that particular trade magazine. Closest I can come is this https://www.mhlnews.com/archive/article/22042040/ups-to-manage-most-of-mercks-us-distribution
And an article about fedex getting better at tracking.
https://www.mhlnews.com/covid19/article/21143446/ramping-up-tracking-anticipating-vaccine-rollout
n
“Vista Outdoors reports ammunition backlog of over $1B”
https://gunfreezone.net/friday-funny-5/
Yup, gonna be buying your ammo in dime bags one of these days.
I shot 35 rounds of .38 +P last Sunday. Didn’t really realize at the time that I was shooting $50. Sure am glad that I have quite a few boxes more that I bought for less than $20 each.
That’s why I’m shooting BBs and airsoft in the back yard.
n
PSA has black rifles and pistols in stock for the moment, and they’re even offering discounts off the inflated prices.
https://palmettostatearmory.com/daily-deals-new.html?stock_filter=Show+Only+In+Stock
catching up:
@Nick
1) pool liner
Might have to go to a truck stop to get it, but a couple gallons of winter windshield deicer applied with a garden sprayer should help dry out your pool liner.
2) I read Cities in Flight in the library editions. Bought the multi-volume pb, but the later pb was better (no question about order).
3) I read Amber as they came out–too darn slow. Look at the production rate of Ringo and Flint. Stuart Woods does four books a year and collaborates on another. Can you imagine half again the Heinlein, or double, just from structural efficiencies? Asimov could have done another 100 books.
@Lynn
Can relate to the flood loss. lost my Tom Swift Jr collection and several thousand pb. Was only six inches of water, though, and I caught them pretty quick. Took them outside, separated the books, tore the covers off, and let them dry in the sun. Packed the dried covers away, and someday I may eposy them into tabletops and sell ’em off at a con.
@Jenny
Crack a farm egg and a store egg side-by-side and take a photo. Pull it out when someone asks why.
–I remember reading a couple of months ago that the major shippers were building out cold storage ahead of any vaccine but I can’t find the article because I just throw out that particular trade magazine
I saw a story earlier this year about UPS building cold storage at their airport hub.
My T470 ThinkPad updated its Intel Management Engine firmware tonight.
If I had a collection of tin foil headgear, I’d say that the machine was etting ready to send my web history to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee upon command.
joebiden.com?
I find a freshly made beanie is much more effective.
H/T CowboySlim 😉
What continues to amaze me is the number of SKUs available. Recently wanted a new digital clock for my desk that shows at the same time the time, month, day and date. Despite their sometimes questionable search engine I found exactly what I was looking for (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XGJP62H/)?tag=ttgnet-20. When I think back to the pre-internet days (yeah, I’m that old – lol) I can’t imagine finding something exactly like this unless it happened to be in one of the large stack of mail-order catalogs I recall having.
When I think back to the pre-internet days (yeah, I’m that old – lol) I can’t imagine finding something exactly like this unless it happened to be in one of the large stack of mail-order catalogs I recall having.
The Sharper Image for $125.
Wow, they are still around. Why ?
https://www.sharperimage.com/
–I remember reading a couple of months ago that the major shippers were building out cold storage ahead of any vaccine but I can’t find the article because I just throw out that particular trade magazine
I saw a story earlier this year about UPS building cold storage at their airport hub.
-70 C (-94 F) ain’t just cold storage, that is real low cold storage. The story I saw was that they built -75 C storage. They knew this was coming. Of course, Pfizer announced the vaccine back in July. I’ll bet that UPS got Operation Warp Speed money for the ultra low cold storage units.
ThinkPads are not IBM anymore. They send info back to China as all those devices do…
What continues to amaze me is the number of SKUs available.
Big River reminds me of Walmart in the good old days when they carried 250,000+ SKUs per store. Now I wonder if Walmart even has 100,000 SKUs per store.
Already here. The semi-self-driving modules in some GM cars require an OnStar link subscription to be able to get updates. If you don’t renew after your initial free trial (a couple of years, IIRC) the software for it is disabled. Tesla had some dustups about not transferring some of the self-drive software when cars are resold.
(TBH, I understand why they do that. They don’t want to be responsible for someone who had an accident while driving around with an out of date system, they would get sued.)
Oh wow, Texas is now number one in tested cases in the USA. 1,089,194 out of 11,064,364 total tested cases for the USA since this nightmare started.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
But the number of deaths in Texas is 688 per million population (#21). That is not even close to New Jersey and New York at 1,875 and 1,745 per million population.
John Deere tractors and harvesters are also effectively rentals. They have been the subject of the “right to repair” movement because they lock down to only using their parts and people, even though you supposedly “bought” that $800K combine.
n
…stack of mail-order catalogs I recall having.
Ah, reminds me of the DAK catalog, one of the most fun to read. Still going.
ARRGH ! I hate vi running in putty on Windows when trying to put a Unicode character on my website’s HTML. Nothing works, Ctrl+V or Ctrl-Q. Dumb Unix !
And yes, I run FreeBSD on my dedicated webserver. 64 bit version 12.
Million dollar bricks after the EMP.
And then one season until the die off is complete.
n
“Did the US Raid European Software Company Scytl and Seize their Servers in Germany? — Our Intel Source Says YES, IT HAPPENED!”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/us-raid-software-company-scytl-seize-servers-germany-intel-source-says-yes-happened/
“Earlier today Rep. Louie Gohmert told Chris Salcedo on Newsmax that people on the ground in Germany report that Scytl, which hosted elections data improperly through Spain, was raided by a large US ARMY force and their servers were seized in Frankfurt.”
What the crap ?
Now I understand why Esper was fired.
“Amazing Coincidences”
http://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/11/amazing-coincidences.html
“Between 330am to 430am, they “found” 140,000 mail in ballots for Biden in Wisconsin.”
“Between 330am to 500am, they “found” 200,000 mail in ballots for Biden in Michigan.”
“Between 200am to 400am, they “found” 1,000,000 mail in ballots for Biden in Pennsylvania.”
“All for Biden. None for Trump.”
Amazing. Simply amazing.
How does this get fixed ? Civil War II ?
@Lynn
It gets fixed now or never.
@Nick
OTOH, a call to John Deere last Saturday for a part got the question: “When do you want it there?” They were in the field with the combine 8AM Sunday morning, as requested.
“@Nick
OTOH, a call to John Deere last Saturday for a part got the question: “When do you want it there?” They were in the field with the combine 8AM Sunday morning, as requested. ”
–could you have gotten it from a third party if you wanted to? I don’t recall anyone giving testimony that their service was bad, only that they controlled the software on the machines and the software doesn’t allow “unauthorized” parts or service.
n
Sigh, join the club. And cell phones. And PCs. Paper books? My God, man, how did we survive? LOL.
Which isn’t true.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-wi-pa-mi-vote-spikes/fact-check-vote-spikes-in-wisconsin-michigan-and-pennsylvania-do-not-prove-election-fraud-idUSKBN27Q307
Have there been fraudlent vote? Yes. But probably in the hundreds, scattered here and there. If the Democrats were able to conjure all these votes, they would have taken the Senate race and not lost all those House seats. Control of the Senate is as critical to their plans as the White House.